Led Down the Garden Path

It was a productive weekend.

A few months ago, I took a freelance job to proofread a book. Even before the money came in, I decided what I wanted to do with it. Kathy and I had been talking about laying down a small pathway between our deck and what will be our garden on the side of the house. So, money in hand, we picked a weekend. That weekend was this Saturday and Sunday.

We looked at it as a day-long project, but between a couple of extra steps and some shopping detours, it took two days to complete. Given our usual margin of error of plus or minus 1 month, it was right on time. (We made sure to keep Sunday clear in case we needed it, so we have at least that little bit of self-knowledge.)

It was a tricky business, this path. To lay pavers, you need to dig about six inches down in order to give them a firm foundation – you can’t just drop them on the ground where you want them to go. Problem is, our path was on a slope, probably about 20 or 30 degrees. Compounding that, we didn’t want to dig out the upper part of the path; we wanted to build up the area on its sides (or side, actually – to the other side of the path were rotting railroad ties, which, with the help of our neighbor Willie, we replaced with pressure-treated wood). Because of this – the slope, the build-up, the different sides – the ditch was very difficult to visualize. Admit it – you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.

Even though we planned an early start, much of day one was taken up by the pressure-treated wood follies. After we picked out the 12-foot-loong 6 by 6 ties at Home Depot, they told us they couldn’t cut pressure-treated wood because of the ventilation system; we put them back and went to Lowe’s, who said over the phone that they could cut pressure treated wood. Problem was, the wood we picked out was too thick for the saw. Luckily, they were 8 feet long instead of 12, and we could fit them in the back of the car and cut them at home wit a circular saw borrowed from Willie.

Between replacing the wood and digging the ditch, Saturday was shot. But it looked like Sunday wouldn’t take too long.

Sunday’s task was to lay down the foundation layer of rocks, and then a second, finer layer on which to rest the paver stones. Easy enough to do, even though we realized the path was a little too narrow for our stones and had to be adjusted (and more foundation had to be bought). Then came time to lay the stones.

It turns out that left to their own devices, the stones we chose naturally curve to the right. Or left, I suppose, depending on the direction you’re walking. We got about five stones laid down, and suddenly we were faced with a dilemma: The path was on a collision course with the wooden wall on the side. Eventually, we came up the solution of making the path slightly narrower in places, in a sense resetting the pattern to start again. Since the stones themselves would be surrounded by river pebbles (“Gravilla de Rio,” the bags helpfully said), the path’s width could be visually uniform even when the stones themselves varied.

By 5 p.m., all the river pebbles were poured out (we needed two extra bags of them, too) and the solar lanterns were placed to the side of the path. We’re both really happy with the way it looks, and pretty damn proud that we managed to get it done in the weekend. We’ve got a vacation coming up, and it feels like we earned it.

Rob